When this flagship thematic reader first appeared in the 1980s, instructors appreciated its rigorous approach and challenging essays. This revision harks back to the classic Dolphin Reader, with its timeless selections, lengthier readings, and streamlined apparatus. Compiled by a longtime freshman composition coordinator and current director of a writing-across-the-curriculum program, The Dolphin Reader is designed to engage students and provide instructors with flexibility and variety. The 87 carefully selected readings are arranged in thematic units that prepare students to face some of the central questions in a wide range of academic disciplines. Assignments and paper topics guide students to write in various styles, from autobiographical to historical, while helping them make connections and comparisons among essays. A unit of four nonfiction masterpieces includes Lytton Strachey's "Florence Nightengale" and Joan Didion's "Slouching Toward Bethlehem." These renowned longer selections are not available in comparable readers, and they give students an opportunity not only to read some of the finest prose of the last century, but also to apply insights drawn from several of the thematic units to a longer work. The Instructor's Resource Manual has hundreds of questions for discussion and writing; lesson plans and reading quizzes for each unit; and summaries, lesson plans, and style exercises for every selection.